Oh them ciggies, part two

DrugMonkey made an interesting comment on my post about the flap over cigarette manufacturer funding for a lung cancer researcher:

This knee-jerk reaction really perplexes me. We just got a round of this with the Edie Londen flap at UCLA too. There seems to be an element that thinks that any research support that derives from tobacco sales is bad, whether this might be a result of settlement monies to the state or a direct payment from PhillipMorris.

I'm not naive about the ways that companies might influence outcome. But the point should be to assess on a case by case basis whether in fact the research was affected by the funding source. Do you know the agreements by which the support was awarded to the researcher? How do you know that the researcher wasn't completely independent?

"will totally discredit"? Don't you see how arrogantly circular this is?

This foundation was set up apparently for early detection of lung cancer. I am having difficulty understanding how this, and the scientists area of research are negatively affected by the funding source.

I mean, what? Early detection of cancer might allow treatment / smoking discontinuation resulting in fewer nastiest-case-scenarios available to demonstrate how evil smoking is? oo, big win for tobacco there! is this the rationale for objecting to this situation?

I'm not sure if you had a chance to read the whole Times article or not, but the idea is that Dr. Henschke’s data make lung cancer sound "safer" by suggesting CT scans can detect it in early, curable stages.

If this were true, that would be terrific, for smokers and non-smokers alike, because we'd all have a hugely improved chance of surviving lung cancer. Of course, smokers get lung cancer at way higher rates than nonsmokers, so it's particularly good news for them. And in turn, for the cigarette companies, whose customer base will live longer, and perhaps grow larger as more people see lung cancer as an inconvenience, not a death sentence. That's why a tobacco company would plausibly be excited about funding Henschke's research....and in turn why Henschke might be lured to tilting her study interpretations favorably towards CT scanning as a solution for lung cancer.

I agree with the basic principle that it'd be nice if we could somehow look at people's data and results, and separate out the Tainted from the Pure-As-Driven-Snow. Unfortunately, as long-time journal club attendance has taught me, we as scientists are always capable of disagreeing about the accuracy of data even from theoretically unbiased scientists with no axes to grind. How are we supposed to police people for ciggie (or Viagra, or Prozac) tilted data? (Also, who's going to take on that job? Not only will they make enemies right and left, they themselves can't take any of this lucrative tobaccy money.....).

Because of these kinds of problems, cancer researchers are generally not supposed to take money from cigarette-funded groups:

“If you’re using blood money, you need to tell people you’re using blood money,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. The society gave Dr. Henschke more than $100,000 in grants from 2004 to 2007, money it would not have provided had it known of Liggett’s grants, Dr. Brawley said. [From the NYT article]

I'm not sure why you find the idea that cigarette money discredits lung cancer research "arrogantly circular." It's true that some scientists can probably take that money and not let it affect their findings. But since it's so hard to distinguish good from bad from nobody-can-agree-which, I think the ACS's position of not funding anyone who is funded by tobacco money is reasonable. At the very least, Henschke is in trouble with them.